Sir William Wyndham | |
|---|---|
 Sir William Wyndham, 1713 portrait byJonathon Richardson,National Portrait Gallery, London | |
| Chancellor of the Exchequer | |
| In office 1713–1714 | |
| Preceded by | Sir Robert Benson |
| Succeeded by | Sir Richard Onslow |
| Secretary at War | |
| In office 1712–1713 | |
| Preceded by | George Granville |
| Succeeded by | Francis Gwyn |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1688 |
| Died | 17 June 1740(1740-06-17) (aged 51–52) |
| Spouse(s) | Lady Catherine Seymour Maria Catherina de Jonge |
| Children | 5 |
| Parent(s) | Sir Edward Wyndham, 2nd Baronet Katherine Leveson-Gower |
| Education | Eton College |
| Alma mater | Christ Church, Oxford |
Sir William Wyndham, 3rd Baronet (c. 1688 – 17 June 1740),[1] ofOrchard Wyndham in Somerset, was anEnglishTory politician who sat in theHouse of Commons from 1710 to 1740. He served asSecretary at War in 1712 andChancellor of the Exchequer in 1713 during the reign of the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne (1702–1714). He was aJacobite leader firmly opposed to the Hanoverian succession and was leader of the Tory opposition in theHouse of Commons during the reign of KingGeorge I (1714–1727) and during the early years of KingGeorge II (1727–1760).
His first wife was Lady Catherine Seymour, the younger of the two daughters ofCharles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset (died 1748), and in her children by Wyndham, heiress to half of the vast estates, includingPetworth House in Sussex andEgremont Castle in Cumberland, formerly held by the extinctPercy family,Earls of Northumberland. As a result of this complex inheritance his eldest son became the 2ndEarl of Egremont. Both his sons became earls and his daughter Elizabeth Wyndham was both the wife and mother ofPrime Ministers, namelyGeorge Grenville andWilliam Wyndham Grenville respectively.
He built the pier atWatchet harbour, near Orchard Wyndham.[2]
He was the son and heir ofSir Edward Wyndham, 2nd Baronet (c. 1667 – 1695) of Orchard Wyndham, three timesMember of Parliament forIlchester, Somerset, by his wife Katherine Leveson-Gower, eldest daughter ofSir William Leveson-Gower, 4th Baronet.
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He was educated atEton College andChrist Church, Oxford. As a young man while atRome on hisGrand Tour he was approached by a fortune teller who warned him to "beware of a white horse". A similar prophecy was made to him later in England. He later surmised that the white horse in question represented theSaxon Steed in the coat of arms of theElector of Hanover, the future KingGeorge I of Great Britain, his opposition to whom would later cause him much trouble.[2]
He entered parliament asMember of Parliament forSomerset at a by-election on 26 April 1710 and was returned again at the1710 British general election. He becameSecretary at War in theTory ministry in 1712 andChancellor of the Exchequer in 1713. He was closely associated with the radical Tory leaderLord Bolingbroke and was privy to the attempts made to bring about aJacobite restoration on the death ofQueen Anne (1702–1714). On the failure of the plot he was dismissed from office,[3] and in 1714 was briefly imprisoned.
At the start of the reign of the Hanoverian King George I (1714–1727), Bolingbroke fled into exile in France to join the court of theOld Pretender, and Wyndham took his place in England as the leader of the Jacobites. A rebellion to oust King George was planned for the summer of 1715, and Wyndham sent a message to the Pretender in July "not to lose a day in going over".[4] However, the rebellion was discovered and Wyndham's role was laid before the cabinet, attended by both the king and the 6th Duke of Somerset, Wyndham's father-in-law, who although a member of theWhig government and a firm supporter of the Hanoverian Succession, wanted to protect his son-in-law from arrest, and thus volunteered to "be responsible for him". Most ministers were inclined to agree to this for fear of offending a person of such consequence, yetLord Townshend,Secretary of State for the Northern Department, in the belief that the government needed to show firmness, moved the motion to have him arrested. Ten minutes of silence ensued while the other ministers considered their own responses, and finally two or three others seconded the motion and the arrest was decreed by the king, who on retiring to his closet took Townshend's hand and told him: "you have done me a great service today".[5]
Lord Stanhope brought down to the Commons a message from the King, desiring their consent for apprehending six members of their House on a charge of "being engaged in a design to support the intended invasion of the kingdom",[6] namely[7] Sir William Wyndham,Sir John Pakington, 4th Baronet,Edward Harvey (MP for Clitheroe),[8]Thomas Forster,John Anstis, andCorbet Kynaston. Consent was granted. Harvey and Anstis were in London, and were at once taken. Harvey stabbed himself in the breast in two or three places but his wounds were not mortal. Forster escaped and served as General of the Jacobite army in the1715 Uprising.
Accordingly, ColonelJohn Huske of the "foot-guards" (i.e.Coldstream Guards), at about this time an aide-de-camp toWilliam Cadogan, 1st Earl Cadogan, was sent to arrest Wyndham at home at Orchard Wyndham. The story is related in detail by the contemporary commentatorBoyer (1716).[9] He was awoken at 5 in the morning and on searching his bedroom the colonel found incriminating papers in his waistcoat pocket, which listed his co-conspirators who planned to invade England and place the Old Pretender on the throne. The colonel had orders to "use him with decorum" and trusted Wyndham when he gave his word that at 7 am, having dressed and said goodbye to his pregnant wife, he would be dressed and ready to depart as the colonel's prisoner, and would even lay on his own coach and six horses for the purpose. Wyndham however escaped by the third unguarded door of his chamber and fled,[9] it is said by having jumped out of a window onto a waiting horse.[2] This caused the king to circulate a hand-bill headed "Proclamation for apprehending Sir William Wyndham, Baronett", dated 23 September 1715, which offered a huge reward of £1,000 for his capture.[a]
Seeing that his case was hopeless, having for a while disguised himself as a clergyman, he visited his father-in-law the Duke of Somerset at his seat ofSyon House, near London. From there he went to London and surrendered himself to the Duke's son and his brother-in-law the Earl of Hertford, a captain in the King's Lifeguards, and was taken into custody[9] in theTower of London. The 6th Duke of Somerset offered bail to the council for Wyndham's liberty, which was refused. It was soon after having made that offer that the king dismissed him from the high office ofMaster of the Horse.[5]
Under KingGeorge I (1714–1727) and during the early years of KingGeorge II (1727–1760) Wyndham was the leader of the Tory opposition in theHouse of Commons and fought for hisHigh Church and Tory principles againstSir Robert Walpole. He was in constant communication with the exiled Bolingbroke and after 1723 was actively associated with him in abortive plans for the overthrow of Walpole.[3]
He appears as "Gumdahm" in theparliamentary reports published from 1738 onwards under the title of the "Debates in the Senate ofMagna Lilliputia" in theGentleman's Magazine, in which to circumvent the prohibition of the publication of parliamentary debates the real names of the various debaters were replaced bypseudonyms andanagrams[b] and the debates reported were stated to have been "those of that country whichGulliver had so lately rendered illustrious, and which untimely death had prevented that enterprising traveller from publishing himself", that is to say works of fiction in the style ofJonathan Swift'sGulliver's Travels. The published speeches, including some of those of William Pitt, were in fact often literary masterpieces wholly invented by the magazine's contributors, includingWilliam Guthrie andSamuel Johnson.[10][c]
Despite these various enmities, Wyndham was a respected participant in public life in London. He was one of the founding governors of theFoundling Hospital, as recorded in that charity'sroyal charter of 1739. This was perhaps due to the fact that his father-in-law the 6th Duke of Somerset became a founding governor after his second wife, Charlotte Finch (1711–1773), became the first to sign the petition to King George II of its founder Captain Thomas Coram. This institution, the country's first and only children's home forfoundlings, was then London's most fashionable charity and Wyndham served as a governor with such other notables asThomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne,James Waldegrave, 1st Earl Waldegrave,Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington,Henry Pelham,Arthur Onslow,Horatio Walpole, 1st Baron Walpole of Wolterton and evenSir Robert Walpole himself.[3]
Wyndham married twice. His first marriage was to Lady Catherine Seymour, the younger of the two daughters ofCharles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset,KG (1662–1748), and sister ofAlgernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset (1684–1750). On her brother's death in 1750 she became (with the 7th Duke's only daughterLady Elizabeth Seymour and her husbandSir Hugh Smithson, 4th Baronet) one of two co-heirs to the vast estates formerly belonging to the ancientPercy family, former Earls of Northumberland, including ofEgremont Castle in Cumberland and of the jewel in the crownPetworth House in Sussex, rebuilt in palatial style by her father the 6th Duke, whose first wife had been the great heiress LadyElizabeth Percy (1667–1722), only daughter and sole heiress ofJoceline Percy, 11th Earl of Northumberland (1644–1670) of Petworth House andAlnwick Castle in Northumberland.
By his wife Lady Catherine Seymour he had two sons and three daughters including:
Sir William's second wife was Maria Catherina de Jonge, the widow ofWilliam Godolphin, Marquess of Blandford.[3]
He died at Wells, Somerset, on 17 June 1740, after having fallen from his horse ("white of course"[2]) whilst out hunting.[e]
Portraits of Sir William Wyndham survive at Orchard Wyndham, Petworth House and other Wyndham family properties.[14]
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Wyndham, Sir William".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 872–873.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forSomerset 1710–1740 With:Henry Seymour Portman 1710 Sir Thomas Wroth 1710–1713 Thomas Hormer, 1713–1715 William Helyar 1715–1722 Edward Phelips 1722–1727 Thomas Horner 1727–1740 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Master of the Buckhounds 1711–1712 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chancellor of the Exchequer 1713–1714 | Succeeded by |
| Honorary titles | ||
| Preceded by | Vice-Admiral of Somerset 1709–1715 | Succeeded by |
| Baronetage of England | ||
| Preceded by | Baronet (of Orchard, Somerset) 1695–1740 | Succeeded by |
Chancellors of the exchequer under theHouse of Stuart (1603–1649; 1660–1714) | ||
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| William III (1694–1702) |
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| Anne (1702–1714) |
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